in order to direct a few crazy old fortune tellers, with some tawdry ornaments, and essences, and smelling bottles, to a stable near the village of Bethlehem; an ignis fatuus was probably employed to light them back again! The idea of the miraculous birth of Jesus is also evidently founded upon false notions of the nature of man. Possessed of no innate ideas, we retain no vicious, or erroneous, or impure impressions from our immediate predecessors; besides, even if we did so, Jesus evidently had a mother, and from her he was doubtless exposed to receive all the errors, and all the failings, and all the imperfections, to which, generally speaking, human nature has in all ages been exposed. A question of religion must not be decided on principles of false politeness and gallantry. The spotless innocence of the Virgin Mary has indeed been much insisted on by the Romish church; and, in order to support this opinion, her mother, and, for ought I know, her mother's mother, have equally had that innocence attributed to them. In this indeed they only act consistently, for if we rest our world on an elephant, we must submit to stand our elephant on a tortoise, and at last be reduced to the necessity of propping up our tortoise by the best expedients within our power to adopt, without much reference either to the truth, or reason of the thing, or to its real and actual existence in nature.

The miraculous birth of Jesus is also evidently connected with the belief in the superiority of his nature; but if, for. the sake of argument, we allow this superiority, did he not, we would ask, do every thing in exact accordance with the nature of the beings whose form he is supposed to have adopted? Did he not hunger like a man? did he not thirst like a man? was he not tempted like a man? did he not live, did he not die like a man? Where then can the possible reason be given that he should not also have been born like one? A miraculous birth, in any case, must have been superfluous, and could have answered no good ends, and in the instance of Jesus we plainly see, that it neither gained for him the attention of mankind, nor yet secured to him through life the peculiar nature and attributes of a superior being.

The next objection is, that these chapters" include a series of miracles useless in themselves, absurd in their nature, and derogatory of the dignity of God." That miracles should have actually attended the birth, as they afterwards did the maturer age of the Messiah, does not perhaps in itself, and a priori appear improbable; but miracles, like every thing else throughout Nature, were never caused by

the Deity in vain. Thus we find that Jesus, and his more immediate disciples, were endowed with the power of healing the sick, in some instances of raising the dead, and in others of speaking intuitively in foreign languages; but what has been the result and consequence of this? that Christianity, with its never-failing attendants, prospe rity, happiness, and civilization, almost immediately spread itself over the whole surface of the then known globe; that it has ever since been incessantly extending its influence, and even now at this moment is gradually and imperceptibly enlarging its sphere, and ameliorating the condition of man, Such then are, in the first instance, the effects of the miracles of Jesus and his disciples, and those effects become after wards, in fact, the rational proofs to after ages of their having actually been previously performed by them.

Let us now turn to the miracles of the chapters in ques tion, and examine as well into the consequences of which they were productive, as into the proof of which they may now be susceptible. Jesus, to fulfil certain supposed pro phecies, was born in a manner contrary to the common course of nature, and that too, from an apparently casual con catenation of circumstances, at the very place from which the Jews expected their Messiah; events of the most stu pendous nature, and means of the most impressive species, occurred, and were resorted to, in order to blazon forth and publish to the world this important and remarkable occur, rence; the order of nature was subyerted in almost every possible manner; inspiration seemed to alight upon the head, and to prompt the tongue of all who saw the holy infant, the visible and acknowledged Messiah of the Most High! The earth was troubled at his presence, and angels broke through the silence of the night to fill the concave of the heavens with his praises! Let us now then, putting the same question as before, ask what have been the conse quences and what the result of these interferences? The answer is easily made, and may be simply given, for it is comprized in one single word, NOTHING. An event, unforeseen we must conclude it to have been, occurred to render the whole of these exertions on the part of the Deity useless and of no effect! Herod chanced to become jealous of the child, he was carried into Egypt, his identity as the miraculously announced Messiah was lost, or remained unknown to the world, and all these evidences of his power were forgotten, or at least their object was compleatly defeated.

It has already been observed that the extraordinary,

and as they may well be called supernatural effects of mira cles in the moral world, or on the minds of their beholders, are the only evidence which can be given to after-ages of their having actually been performed. Such therefore as produce no such effects, can furnish no such evidence, and thus would appear to be established the remaining part of the objection, that the "miracles in question (unlike all the others recorded in the scriptures) are devoid of the proof which can alone render the former existence of miracles the object of reasonable belief."

That the story of the miraculous conception, and all the attendant circumstances of the supposed birth of Jesus, "have been evidently borrowed from the mythological records, or derived from the priestly impositions of the heathen nations," is the next point to be established.

It is a well-known fact, that the early converts to Christianity, ashamed of the humility of its origin, and the simplicity of its doctrines, did all within their power to raise it in the esteem of the world, and of their own weak and misguided minds, by giving, in the first instance, a mystical interpretation of its facts, and its doctrines, and subsequently by transferring to its worship, all the external observances and gorgeous paraphernalia of the heathen ritual. Thus the sophists of the schools introduced the idea of a trinity; and thus the doctrine of atonements, and the necessity of sacrificial offerings, have become so firmly established, as to be yet received throughout the greater portion of the Christian world. The chapters under consideration would appear to bear evident marks of some such an origin. The story of the magi coming from the east may first serve to direct our attention, and some remarkable facts already referred to in your Magazine, (vol. 2. p. 182 and 197-9) appear to be fully capable of gratifying it. We there learn from the most indisputable authority, that a story, attributed at times to various Deities, but agreeing in almost all its circum-. stances with that related of Jesus in the chapters in question, is received throughout the whole of what in modern times we designate by the name of the East Indies, that is, China, Hindostan, the Birman Empire, &c. A child miraculously conceived, and whose birth is attended by many supernatural circumstances, is exposed in its earliest infancy to danger, from the dread and jealousy of a tyrannical monarch, who, on its being concealed from his fury, causes all the neighbouring children under a certain age to be murdered; the child, however, brought up in secresy among shepherds (which might possibly have suggested the

flight into Egypt remains till he is thirty yeas of age, when he commences the purposes of his mission, and becomes a mighty chieftain and warrior.

Öther modes by which the events in question may possibly have been introduced into the Christian writings have been suggested; an ingenious and well informed writer* has traced the supposed birth of Jesus with great appear ance of probability, up to an imposition of the priests of Isis, with regard to a woman of the name of Paulina, whom they pretended to have borne a son to their God on her visiting his temple. The story is recorded at some length by Josephus, and, as it would appear, in evident connection with the subject of Christianity, which, in the immediately preceeding passage, that writer had been referring to. The fact at any rate, is, that this alleged imposition of the priests of Isis may be taken as a key to all the similar stories, as to the miraculous descendants of the gods, which the earlier mythological traditions of almost every people present to the observant enquirer. Priests (as men placed in the same circumstances) are alike in all ages. From which of these traditions the legend prefixed to the memoirs of Jesus has been taken, is indeed uncertain; but the fact, that from some such source it actually has been derived, would appear to be firmly and indisputably established.

Many of the passages in these chapters also are copied literally from the avowedly spurious gospels of the earlier ages; the Gospel of the Virgin, that of the Infancy, &c. These pretended histories are from beginning to end full of the most absurd, trifling, and at the same time impious stories, which must be regarded either as foolish tales fit only for the amusement of children, or (as has been suggested with some shew of plausibility) as containing hidden and mystical meanings, which, under the allegory of circumstances attendant on the birth and infancy of Jesus, originally con veyed to the initiated and the duly instructed, a supposed philosophical account, according to the oriental principles, of the incarnation of Deity, a display of his powers and attributes, and a description of the purposes of his mission on earth,

In either case all this can have nothing to do with genuine and uncorrupted Christianity; when therefore we find any part of it transferred to the genuine gospels, what can we possibly do other than reject it with disdain? For if,

Jones, in his " Developement of Remarkable Events calculated to restore the Christian Religion to its original Purity, and to repel the Objections of Unbelievers."

on the one hand, they are mere children's stories, and superstitious legends, they are utterly unworthy of our notice; and if, on the other, they bear a concealed and mystical meaning, that meaning is probably false; and even if it should be otherwise, where shall we at this time find means to decypher it with the smallest degree either of correctness or certainty?

The next objection is, that the chapters" were omitted and strenuously opposed by many of the earlier Christians, and are indeed known by historical evidence to have been interpolated." It is an allowed point that Matthew wrote his gospel for the use of his countrymen, the Jews; and, however it may have been disputed, it is a probable one, that he composed it in the Hebrew language. The present Greek copies, at least the greatest part of them, contain indeed the introductory chapters, but we learn from the writings of their opponents, which is all that the industry of those opponents have suffered to come down to us, that the earlier Jewish converts were in possession of a gospel in their native language, avowedly written by that apostle, which did not contain them. Now though plausible reasons for interpolation might be, and indeed in this letter have been given, yet no possible reason can be adduced, why men, who must have known the truth, should reject any of the facts recorded by the immediate disciples of Jesus.

We further find, that Tatian composed in the second eentury a harmony of the gospels, yet extant, in which the passages in question do not occur; but the most remark. able circumstance attending this work, is an expression in the subsequent writings of Theodcret, who says, "I have met with two hundred of these books, which were in esteem in our churches, all of which I took away, and laid aside in a parcel, and placed in their room the gospels of the four evangelists." With such industrious and determined opponents, having besides, from the then state of literature, the whole power of preservation and destruction in their own hands, can we wonder that authentic evidence on the true state of the case should now be wanting?

That the passages "stand perfectly unconnected with the ensuing parts of the narration, which would in fact be more consistent and apparently correct, without than with them," will be visible to the most casual observer, who shall take the trouble of reading the chapters, together with those which are placed immediately after them, Thus it will be seen, that the second chapter of Matthew leaves